Snolab
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SNOLAB is a Canadian underground physics laboratory under construction at a depth of 2 km in Sudbury, Ontario in Inco's Creighton nickel mine. It currently hosts three experiments:
- The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO),
- The PICASSO (dark matter) dark matter search, and
- The POLARIS (seismology) underground project, observing seismic signals at depth in very hard rock.
A large deep cavity was originally constructed for the SNO experiment, but other experimental groups were interested in the very deep location. In 2002 funding was approved by the Canada Foundation for Innovation to expand the SNO facilities into a general-purpose laboratory.[1] While some limited experiments are using the existing SNO space, excavation of new underground lab space is underway with occupancy expected in 2007.
Snolab is one of the world's deepest underground lab facilities. Although accessed though a dirty commercial mine, the laboratory proper is maintained as a cleanroom, with very low levels of dust and background radiation. The 2 km overburden of rock provides 6010 Meters Water Equivalent (MWE) of shielding from cosmic rays, providing a low-background environment for experiments requiring high sensitivities and extremely low counting rates. In the field of dark matter search the DEAP and CDMS projects want to move their experiments to SNOLAB along with PICASSO. In the field of neutrino physics the SNO+ collaboration wants to re-use the existing SNO infrastructure. The proposed EXO experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay is also a candidate to be housed in Snolab.
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